One of our corners

Another really hot day, despite an overnight thunder storm which was supposed to cool things down and even a touch of rain this morning (which I slept blissfully through and knew nothing about until later on). We'd already excluded that today would be our shopping day, and had even extended our stay for an extra day so we could make up for shops being closed yesterday (Whit Monday holiday in Germany). We'd consulted our music-group friends who have a place here and learned from them that the KaDeWe department was much closer than we realised, and that we'd do much better there than along Kurfüstendamm as we'd imagined, so we set off for there.

The only damper on the trip had been my problems with walking, which were complicated by what felt like the effects of high humidity but were more probably due to side-effects from the final stages of my hormone injections and the unusually hot weather. All this meant that Carl had to slow himself down to my pace, which wasn't at all fair on him. So I made myself comfortable in Wittenbergplatz while he went on to a clothes shop which was on our list. This arrangement continued afterward when we went into KaDeWe, where I made my way up to the sixth floor for a leisurely circuit of the fantastic food floor and treated myself to a wonderful glass of vegetable juice while Carl spent time in other departments of the store. Anyone who goes to Berlin should spend time on the sixth floor In KaDeWe — it's an unmissable experience. We treated ourselves to a plate of sausages with sauerkraut and a glass of beer, followed at another of the many food outlets by delicious hot chocolate and coffee.

We'd arranged to meet our two semi-resident pals for a last supper, but we had enough time to soak up the wonderful pavement café atmosphere closer to home, an area which is centered around the junction of Motz- and Eisenacherstraße. We ate in Wiesenstein restaurant, where we'd had the Grand Gala Dinner on the last group trip to Berlin four years ago. We spent a lively time there, made our emotional farewells with our friends and headed back to our apartment. We did stop a couple of (=few) times in the way, since it was our last night, enjoying our pit stops enormously.

All in all, a perfect final day in Berlin